


The One Thing We're Capable Of

by paperclipsentimental



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, F/M, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Slow Build, before the plot of this, btw im talking suuuuper slow build, but like, inspired by me watching fast five and six and getting Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 09:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19999882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipsentimental/pseuds/paperclipsentimental
Summary: Brian thinks; about how her hand had scratched gently at his scalp, how she’d squeezed at his shoulder. Her smile. The way she’d curled her hand over her stomach when she said she was going to have a kid. Their kid. That day, in Rio. He’d meant to say we’re here, but words had bubbled up in his throat like soda in a well shaken can. He’d said, instead; “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” and she’d laughed, surprise in her voice like the sun on a cold day.That's as good a place to start as any. “I loved Mia so much I couldn’t stand it, sometimes. Like it was driving me crazy just looking at her.”





	The One Thing We're Capable Of

Brian thinks; about how her hand had scratched gently at his scalp, how she’d squeezed at his shoulder. Her smile, and the way she’d curled her hand over her stomach when she said she was going to have a kid. _Their_ kid. That day, in Rio. He’d meant to say _we’re here,_ but words had bubbled up in his throat like soda in a well shaken can. He’d said, instead; “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” and she’d laughed, surprise in her voice like the sun on a cold day. 

That's as good a place to start as any. “I loved Mia so much I couldn’t stand it, sometimes. Like it was driving me crazy just looking at her.” 

After Owen Shaw falls out of the plane and into a coma, after the plane goes down and the fire touches Dom and doesn’t burn him, after they get to go back to 1327 and the crooked steps and uneven floor of the garage, after _everything_. 

After. Dom comes looking for Brian. Finds him, baby in arms like he might be able to protect it, if only he never puts it down. Brian looks like he’s been on his feet since the baby was born, since Mia closed her eyes and never opened them again. Like he’s been running. 

Dom sees him, sees Brian seeing him. Sees the hackles go up, hard, like he thinks Dom’s going to snatch the baby away and make a run for it, or sell Brian out to the half million people who apparently want him dead. But the recognition comes in before the flight reflexes kick up, and Dom takes another half step forward into the light. “You know you’re a hard man to find, Brian.” 

Jack starts to cry, tiny fists beating furiously, maybe getting a hint of the tension in the air. Brian glances around and takes a deep breath. “You’d better come in,” he says eventually. 

“Nice place you got here.” It’s true; the place is sweet. But that isn’t why he’s here, and Brian knows that too, all uncertainty in every line of his body, but his hands are impossibly gentle as he rocks Jack, soothing him back to a silent sleep. His eyes are exhausted, dark with shadows that say far more than Brian ever could. 

There is a long pause in which neither of them speaks. They’ve known each other for years; it almost feels like they have nothing left to say. “Whatever it is you want,” Brian manages eventually, though a tongue that feels as heavy as lead, “I can’t give it to you.” 

“Yes, you can. I’m in trouble. _We’re_ in trouble. No catch, no trick. You’re in danger and I want to help you.” Knows it’s the wrong thing to say the second it leaves his mouth, and not even true besides. 

Brian slides Jack off his chest and sets him down into the crib. Wordless, he jerks his head and walks through an open door, and then they’re outside. In an instant, Brian is on him. “You think you coming here has no catches? Do you really?” He’s almost shouting, voice low to stop it carrying. “That must be nice, for you. For you to believe that.” He slaps a hand down on Dom’s chest, then gentles it with a sigh. “There’s always a catch, Dom.” He doesn’t say. The last time I followed you, I lost my wife. He doesn’t have to. 

“So, you’ll turn me away?” Dom replies, incredulous. It’s stupid for him to be angry, now, but still. “Before you even know what’s happening?” 

“You know I could never tell you no.” Brian pushes away and leans on the balcony, something sad and hunched up about his body, now. “Tell me what’s going on,” he grits out, looking all for the world like he thinks he’s just signed off his own death sentence. 

Dom hates that he’s putting that look on his face, hates the way the low light is draping woefully across Brian’s shoulders, like it’s trying to give him the hug Dom can’t reach out and give himself. 

“Some guy put Hobbs in the hospital,” is how he chooses to start. “Deckard Shaw. Owen Shaw’s brother. Hobbs asked me to help him put this guy in the ground.” 

Seeming to take this with a grain of salt, Brian continues to stare into the distance, though something about him looks impossibly sadder, now. “So, what the fuck are you doing here?” 

“My first thought was dragging you into this,” Dom admits, quietly ashamed. “I thought, how can I convince Brian to come help me fix this? And I sort of realized that you’ve given me enough.” 

“And then?” 

“And then I told him no.” 

Dom thinks about the way Brian had looked, first time he’d ever seen him. Lots younger, obviously. Longer hair. Happier, like he still had something going for him, like he had known, at that exact moment, that life was going up for him; like he knew he had a future and he was going to enjoy the fuck out of it. 

He didn’t look like that now. He looked like a kid who had known what it was to have a future, once, but like that future had been ripped out of his hands. He looked like the only thing he could imagine further than the moment he was living in right now was the baby in the next room. 

Before Brian can get a word in edgewise – although it looks like he’d like to, anger snapping up in him like a birds wings lifting. It’s the most alive he’s looked since he opened his door and saw Dom standing there – Dom manages to keep talking. “You remember how you felt when you let me go, after you slapped those keys in my hand and told me to get out?” 

“I remember,” Brian says, weighted “I was afraid.” 

“You looked it. You looked like you wanted to do anything in the world but give me those keys, and at the same time – at the same time, you looked like your whole life had led up to that moment. Like you thought you had been born to do that for me.” 

“Mia called it the Toretto Effect,” Brian says like it’s an answer that made any kind of sense, a reply to the question Dom hadn’t even known he was asking. “She said people fell into you. Followed you. She always sort of forgot that she was a Toretto, too.” 

“Yeah.” Talking about her is painful. All Dom can see when he blinks is the way she had clutched at her stomach when she was bleeding to death, the way Brian had put one hand on the wound and the other on her cheek so she couldn’t look. The way he had said, desperate; “You’re okay. It’s okay, Mia, you’re going to be okay,” until she had stopped breathing and he had stood up looking like whole world had been snatched away from him. 

“Han is dead,” Dom says, and kicks himself. Brian takes the news like a physical hit, eyes screwing closed like if he closed them hard enough, he wouldn’t hear. Like if he didn’t hear the news, he wouldn’t have to know it. Like it was possible to unlearn it. Dom had been trying for hours, since Hobbs had turned up on his doorstep with the news. It was hard not to imagine how, to wonder if he was in pain first. Han had been in love, too. Had been grieving, just like Brian. Hard to know he died before he had the chance to live again without the shadow of a lover on his shoulders. 

“Shaw?” Brian asks tightly, hands flexing against the railing as if that might be enough to stop him floating away. Or enough to stop him falling to the floor. 

“Seems like he’s on a personal mission to kill every person who had a hand in what happened to Owen.” 

“Where’s he heading next?” In the distance, Jack starts crying and Brian jerks into action, a key winding him up ready for movement. In a few short moments, he’s back into the house, only to freeze at the sight of Rome and Tej engaged in a staring contest with Jack, who’s regarding them with the kind of teary suspicion only a very young child can manage. 

“We figured he’d be heading here, next. In all of the paperwork he’s got, you’re the one who’s the most isolated from everyone else.” 

“Paper work?” 

“Shaw broke in and stole everything Hobbs had on us, up to where we’ve been living and who we talk to. He knows you’re the most alone, out of all of us.” Apart from Han, goes unsaid. 

Casting Tej and Rome inscrutable looks, Brian slides a hand under Jack and lifts him to press his face into the junction of his neck and shoulder. “You think he’s coming to kill us? Me?” There is something that is both unfocused and intent about him, like all he’s feeling is steel, but melting around the edges. Like what he’s hearing is happening to someone else, and he can’t find the energy to put his energy into action. 

“Brian,” Dom snaps, and Brian finally stops with the fussing and the fidgeting, and he looks at Dom like he’s finally woken up into this whole conversation. “Shaw is coming to kill you. All of us. We all need to get the fuck out of here and into some place when he can’t get to us. Do you understand me right now?” 

Swallowing roughly, Brian rakes a hand down his face and nods twice. “Okay,” he agrees. “Alright.” And then he opened a cupboard to his left and pulled out a duffle bag. A heavy one. “Let’s go.” 

“We have a bit more time, brother,” Rome interjects, cocking a brow at Dom. “If you want to get anything else, you can.” 

Brian looks around hopelessly, nothing going on behind those eyes likes he’s so tired he doesn’t even understand what he’s looking for. Eventually, he opens another cupboard and grabs a can of baby food, steps around Tej and picks a blanket and a teddy out of the crib. “I don’t have anything else,” he says, and they believe him. 

He sleeps all the way to the airport, sprawled across the backseat with his head on Rome's thigh and Jack cradled on his chest. Rome stares into the rearview mirror until Dom has no choice but meet his eyes. Clenching his fingers on the wheel, Dom snaps, “Yes, I got it, for fucks sake stop staring at me,” and Rome looks out the window. 

“I never seen him like this before,” is all he replies. Tej is silent in the front seat, arms crossed. 

Hobbs meets them at the airport, face void, but when he sees Brian his face creases with something almost like concern, something warm and worried. 

Just one last time he has to ask; “Are you sure you can’t help me with this?” 

When Dom shakes his head and Brian stumble out of the car, Jack clutched to his chest with the kind of desperation that means he might be the only real thing in the world right now, Hobbs huffs a deep breath and looks unsurprised. 

“This fight is bigger than us right now,” Dom says in offering. “If I thought we could help you, we’d be doing it.” 

Hobbs sticks out a giant hand and claps it on Dom’s shoulder. “As far as we know, all this guy wants right now is to kill you guys. We’ll lay down a couple of cold trails, buy us some time to think of some good plans. You don’t have to worry. “ 

“Want a little bit of advice?” Dom asks, eyes on Brian, who’s staring down the runway like he isn’t sure he can trust it to stay flat under his feet while he takes his bag to the plane. “Shoot first. If he’s anything like Owen, he’ll be more deadly if he has enough time to get a plan together. Shoot to kill, because you’ll never take him alive.” 

With a considering look, Hobbs removes his hand and runs it down his face. “We definitely won’t be hanging around to ask questions,” he affirms, quiet enough that Dom knows nobody else can hear. 

“That’s good to hear,” Dom murmurs back. “Don’t get killed.” Slings his bag onto his shoulder and sucks in a breath, getting ready to spend another couple hours staring at the tired look on Brian’s face, sharing worried glances with the others when his face twists in pain even as he sleeps. 

“Dom,” Hobbs says, halting him. When he raises an eyebrow, Hobbs runs his tongue across his front teeth and crosses his arms. “Fix O’Conner. You’ll have a couple of weeks minimum to get that guy to shave and get his shit sorted. I’m trusting you to be onto that.” 

With a look that could melt steel, Dom says, all acid; “No shit? I was thinking I was going to sit on my ass while the guy who’s saved my life more than twice rots inside his own head. I was thinking I would just let him drive himself crazy and see what it looks like when he hits the wall going two hundred and ten.” 

“Just checking,” Hobbs says cheerfully and slings himself into his rover, pulling out of the airport with screeching tires in a trail of smoke. 

The plane ride is worse than Dom had thought it would be. A hundred times worse. Brian goes to sleep again, this time with Jack strapped safely into a baby seat, hand resting protectively on the baby’s - toddlers? - stomach, like even in his sleep he’s waiting for something to go wrong. 

It starts with Brian’s face; his expression crumples, his head jerks. What was once early morning light is now mid-afternoon, bubbling and incandescent, like saying things were going to be okay. Things were not okay; it became obvious pretty early on the Brian was having a nightmare, free hand curling into a fist, knuckles white against his own grip. He was crying, very slightly. No sobbing, just tears leaking out of his tightly clenched eyes. 

Those of them that were on a regular sleep schedule were wide awake and had nothing to do but watch. Rome flicked his eyes around the plane like he was thinking about throwing himself out of it, Tej just stared in faint horror. He’d never seen Brian hurt, not really. He seemed to brush trouble off his back like it wasn’t there, deflecting enough that he never even got wet. Even when Mia had died, Brian had shoved it somewhere far away and kept walking, looking like he’d been shot it the gut but was daring it to bother him. This was not like that at all. 

Eventually the torture ended when Brian snapped awake with a jerk, though his hand stayed endlessly gentle on Jack’s stomach. Nevertheless, Jack burst into immediate, shattering tears, tiny lungs producing an amount of noise that was honestly quite impressive. Would be quite impressive, if not for the fact that they were all stuck in a tiny airplane with no way of getting away. 

Brian did not seem phased but the noise at all, only scooped Jack out of the chair and had him cradled into one hand, the other digging into his duffle. He withdrew with another baby bottle, a couple of scoops of powder and a thermos, which he singlehandedly managed to wrangle into a bottle of milk. They all watched as he tested the temperature against the skin of his wrist and offered it to Jack who latched on only to spit it out again, tiny face screwing up and turning red. 

Again, Brian did not seem phased, only slid a towel between Jack and his shoulder and sat. He didn’t seem to notice he had been - was still? - crying. 

Shooting a look and a raised eyebrow at Dom, Tej cracked a couple of knuckles nervously. “Anything I can do bro?” 

As if realising they were there for the first time, Brian glanced around the three of them. “Nothing you can do with Jack, I don’t think,” he frowned. “Could you grab me that blanket?” 

Wordless, Tej opened it up and tucked it around both Brian and Jack. 

After an endlessly long silent hour, the plane started heading down. Even Brian, looking less tired and a tiny bit more comprehending, managed to look pleased about that. 

The groups happiness lasted about as long as it took for them to get into the safe house; there was already a woman there, and she was not happy to see them. In about half a second, she had a gun drawn from... somewhere and pointed in their direction. Safety off, and she clearly knew what she was doing with it. 

“Who the fuck are you,” she snapped, sharp accent and angled jaw tilted up like she wasn’t going to even hint to them that she was afraid of hem, though she must have been. Hence the gun. She only relaxed when she saw Jack, clutched in Brian arms and surveying the goings on with a look of vague condescending. The gun lowers slightly. “Well I certainly hope they didn’t send a guy with a baby to kill me.” 

“We’re not here to kill you, as long as you’re not here to kill us,” Brian mutters, pushing past Dom to look at her face. “You going to try and kill me and my baby?” he asks, sharp and serious, the most alert and functioning Dom has seen him look this whole time. When she shakes her head, he nods, just once. “Then I don’t give a fuck who you are. I’m going to bed.” He shoots a narrow glance at Rome and says, “Dibs the room with the biggest bed. Baby rules.” 

“Aw, come on, don’t play the baby card,” Rome complains, but Brian is already walking upstairs, not listening to anything but whatever might be upstairs. Whatever might hurt Jack. His first and only priority, apparently. 

“Ramsey,” the woman grits, jerking her thumb at herself and holstering the gun. “Who are you?” She doesn’t offer to shake hands; neither does anyone else. There’s a brief round of introductions, still a little cautious. 

“Hobbs send you here?” Dom asks, not trying not to sound suspicious. 

“Big guy? About four layers of muscles?” At Dom’s shrug, she rolls her eyes. “I didn’t get a name or an explanation. I got shoved on a plane and told to stay where ever it put me down. That’s here.” 

“Sounds about right,” Tej inserts, eyes already heart shaped and popping out of his head. 

“About right?” Dom scoffs. “Sounds exactly like that prick to not tell us we’d have company and not tell her either.” 

Brian appears at the top of the staircase, Jack absent. “I’ve put him down for a nap.” To Rome and Tej; “If he cries, come get me. Don’t touch him.” In that moment, he looks so fierce and brutal, serious. Both of them nod, not even a smart joke from Rome. 

He jobs down the stairs, rolls his shoulders and shakes out his arms, like a giant beast coming out of hibernation, unthawing, getting the blood pumping again. “We should talk,” he says to Dom, but heads into the kitchen, scowls at how bare the cupboards are and grabs out a can of sliced peaches, deftly slicing off the top and rummaging around for a fork. With a narrow look at everyone else; “let’s go outside.” 

Dom is the first to talk. “How are you doing?” is what comes out, although it’s not what he’d been meaning to say, not at all. “With. With Mia.” It’s like swallowing glass. _Without_ Mia. 

Brian stares into the distance, eats a couple of slices of peach. Dom can almost see his thoughts like they’re playing on screen across his face. He can almost see the way Brian thinks about Mia, about how much he’d loved her. 

Brian thinks; about how her hand had scratched gently at his scalp, how she’d squeezed at his shoulder. Her smile, the way she’d curled her hand over her stomach when she said she was going to have a kid. _Their_ kid. That day, in Rio. He’d meant to say _we’re here,_ but words had bubbled up in his throat like soda in a well shaken can. He’d said, instead; “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” and she’d laughed, surprise in her voice like the sun on a cold day. 

That's as good a place to start as any. “I loved Mia so much I couldn’t stand it, sometimes. Like it was driving me crazy just looking at her. Like looking in the sun. Like she was hurting me, somewhere I couldn’t protect.” 

Dom tries to imagine what it’s like to love someone like that. Thinks of Letty, instead. They’d loved like something angry, fighting to show love. Her nails biting into his shoulders, the imprint of her teeth on his neck. The way she’d spike up like a cat when the girls at the races came sniffing around, the curl of her lip when she had said something mean. He’d liked that meanness in her, that hardness. They’d been very alike; he had never wanted someone who couldn’t push him around, neither had she. 

Neither of them knew how to love softly, and he’d never felt like she had anything of his held in her hand that she could hurt, not ever. But he could see Mia living like that; she liked winning, but she liked being kind, too. She didn’t like fighting. Her mother had been the same. 

“Jack looks like her,” Brian said after a minute, quiet as a confession, something as hollow and old as a church nobody visited setting up base in his voice, old bones creaking into place. “He’ll look just like her, when he gets older.” 

Dom almost says, stupidly; “At least you’ll have that,” but manages to clamp his mouth shut in time. Brian must see it on his face anyway, because he cracks a smile and smacks the space between Dom’s shoulder blades. 

Eats a couple more peaches. “I’m lucky to have that, I know,” he says, putting Dom out of his misery. “I know she was your sister, that’s the only reason I’m saying this to you right now.” 

“You been lonely, Brian?” Dom recalls that empty house, the way Brian had a go bag stashed in the cupboard and nothing else he had wanted to take. Nothing of his. No pictures, no art on the walls, though he had to have been living there for a couple months by now. 

Dom wouldn’t know – he hadn’t visited. Too busy thinking about how he was the last person in his family left alive. The last one. Like seeing Mia dead had bought back all the grief from when his parents had died, too. He hadn’t thought about Brian, but he wishes now that he had. That he had reached out and checked in, not just let Brian go, Jack a tiny bundle still awkward against his chest. He’d barely even had the thought, _hey, that kid’s my blood,_ when Brian had set off into the distance, and he’d let him go. 

“Do you remember that conversation we had, when you had just found out about Jack?” Dom tries to keep his voice even, but it’s hard to think about any time when Mia had been with them, forget about when they had been talking about her, watching her curl up in the wicker chair with a grey blanket over her legs, so alive and just barely, barely beginning to think about showing. 

Dom thinks about the look that had been on Brian’s face when he’d looked at Mia then, the hope in it, the fear. The same look as when he’d first found out and he’d clutched her to his chest and said, like he thought she might pull the rug out from under him, “Are you kidding me right now?” and the way she had pulled him in to kiss him and had said no, no of course not, and set his hand on her belly, even though there was nothing to feel, not yet. And Dom had pulled them in and said, this family just got bigger by one. Like an idiot. An _idiot._

_“_ Yeah, I remember,” Brian says, eyes on the distance like he can blame the sun in his eyes and the fact that he isn’t blinking for the way his eyes are watering. “I was so scared, Dom. You can’t imagine, until you have your own kids, you could never even. I loved Jack before I even held him in my hands, before I even understand, really, that I was having a baby. I knew I wanted to be a good dad, first thing I thought.” He eats a few more peaches, face crunching up like he might start crying for real, only he turns it into a smile. “I thought, I’m not going to be like my dad was. Clear as a bell, I remember thinking that. Like I just thought it for the first time now.” 

“I told you, you wouldn’t be like him,” Dom reminds him. “You aren’t. You love him so much; I can see it in the way you look at him. At the way you look at anyone who goes near him.” 

Embarrassed, Brian goes to stab another peach out, only to frown at the empty can. He drinks the syrup and sighs. Sets the can aside and latches onto the railing. “I don’t mean to look at you like that. I know you won’t hurt him. I _know_ it. But I think about someone else touching him and my heart feels like it’s going to blow right out my chest. Like I’m going to snap and snatch him back, only I’m scared of hurting him, too. I’m scared I’ll break him.” 

“You wouldn’t do that,” Dom insists, only he remembers Brians hand on Jacks chest, the way the other one had clenched in the throes of a nightmare intense enough have Brian waking in tears, fear in the set of his mouth. He pauses, and Brian twitches the barest smile at him. 

“That look is the same one I get when I think about it,” he says, careful as stepping around broken glass in bare feet. “I’ve woken up swinging, sometimes. Never at him, never _ever._ But that doesn’t make me less scared. What if it happens when he’s old enough the walk into my room, and I go swinging for him then? It gets all fucked up in my head, like I can’t stop thinking in what-ifs.” 

“You would never hurt him on purpose,” Dom says, immediate, certain. 

“Is ‘not on purpose’ good enough?” Brians head tilts down, until he’s staring at where his knuckles are clenched tight around the railing. There are scars there, lots of them. From bar fights, scrapes and cuts turning them into workers hands, brawlers hands. “I feel like, to me, hurting him is hurting him, whether it’s on purpose or not.” 

Dom reaches out and covers Brians hands with his own, drawing his gaze away. Before either of them can speak, Rome sticks his head out the door and hollers, even though they’re only a couple of meters away. “Brian, your baby is crying,” and Brian is gone, nothing left but a rush of wind filling in the space he used to occupy. And the empty can of peaches, quietly judgmental. 

Another plane roars in. This should be drawing some attention, but honestly, Dom can’t think who from. No neighbors, houses far enough apart that they are barely visible in the distance. It’s a rich area, too by the looks of things. Even if the neighbors payed attention to the noise, they’re probably the type to have a couple of private jets hanging around, so they’d see the flights come in and think, hell. Nothing unusual about that. This was the kind of place where every house had a landing strip in their back yard. 

This plane had a familiar face on it, but only barely. Vince’s girl. Rosa. And the boy, too. Both a little older, the kid must be, what? Two? Three? Nico. Dom goes to say hi, and she regards them a little warily. 

“Last time I saw you,” she says in greeting, “my husband died. Whose funeral is it this time?” 

Dom smiles at her, sees what Vince saw, all at once. That fierce tilt of her chin, those eyes. She was a looker, for sure, made of steel and something even harder. 

“It’s not one of ours,” Dom replies, nodding to the house. “Want to come in? I’ll fill you in on what I’ve got.” 

What he had was almost nothing, just the bare bones of what Hobbs had given him. “I’d be guessing he’s just tidying up,” he says. “Your life probably wasn’t in danger, but maybe he wants to get known close associates off the board.” 

Rosa frowns, cutting up an apple and deftly slicing out the core, handing it to Nico. “And I count as a close associate? I met you once.” 

“But you’ve got the kid, too. And Vince was my best friend for a long time. If he loved you, that makes you family. If I wanted to make me angry, draw me out...” he points at her. “You’re a pretty good way of doing it.” 

There is a heavy pause. Lots of those going around, lately. Eventually, she gives a tiny smile. “So who else is here? Not just us, I’d guess.” 

Brian hops around the corner, cooing at Jack, only to freeze at the sight of yet another unexpected person. “I’m going to have a heart attack if all these people keep popping up,” he says after a pause, and Rosa turns to him, face lighting up. 

“Brian,” she smiles, the sun coming out behind those eyes. “And who is this?” She peeks at Jack, and to Dom's surprise, Brian obligingly tilts Jack so she can look at him. Seeming to remember what he came downstairs for, Brian heads to the sink and rinses out another baby bottle, setting it on the side to dry. He keeps up a cooing, bouncing rhythm, and Jack reaches out a tiny hand to wave at him. 

“This is Jack,” he tips over his shoulder. Jack makes a happy squealing sound and Brian smiles at him. “Yes, that’s you,” he agrees. “What brings you to this part of the woods?” 

There’s a hint of tension there, though Dom can’t figure out what at, or what about. Brian looks better rested, and he’s found the time to change his shirt. He looks like he’s relaxed, focused. 

“Shaw,” Rosa says. “Same as you, I guess.” At that moment, Nico toddles back into the room, one last piece of apple clenched in a chubby fist. 

“Mama, ‘s a man outside.” Unconcerned, he grabs her hands and she slings him up onto her hip. There’s worry in those dark eyes, now. 

“Hobbs said I was the last one to get here. Trouble?” 

“Might be,” Dom replies. But it isn’t trouble. It’s Rome, beer in hand, saying man, you would not believe this place, because of course he’s gone snooping. Of course he has. By now, it’s nighttime, sun setting. Time for food; Dom knows how to take care of people, or he had, once, and it starts with full bellies, as good a place as any. 

Brian bounces down the stairs, clasps his free hand into Rome’s and leans in to hug him. Rome hugs back, cautious of the baby between them, but Jack just regards him with sloe eyed placidity. They talk for a long time, just out of hearing, but it’s okay, because Dom can just see Brian’s smile, the first real one he’s seen this whole time. Can see Brian say, sorry we haven’t talked yet. Say, when we caught up, I don’t think I had slept right for weeks. 

Sees the way Rome smiles back, says _it’s all good, brother. We got all the time in the world_. Dom goes inside, secure that everyone would be safe, at least for now. Comes face to face with Rosa, one delicate eyebrow cocked deliberately. 

“He looks a lot sadder than when I saw him last,” she says, like a question, but not. Kind of like an order, a gun to his head. 

“Brian has been through a lot,” is what Dom comes up with, after a second of wordless spluttering. The no nonsense look she gives him is so ridiculously sharp he has to frown so he doesn’t do anything stupid, like tell her she looks like Mia. “It’s more his business than mine.” 

“But she was your sister.” 

Freezing, Dom takes a breath, feeling like she’s smacked him over the head with a two-by-four. “She was the love of his life,” is what he grits out eventually. “In the end, she was more his than she was mine. If my sister would ever belong to somebody apart from herself.” She goes to open her mouth but he turns away, jerks a couple of pots and pans out and sets them down angrily. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” It feels like she’s digging fingers into a salted wound, prying him open for the world to look at. Worse, even, because he hadn’t even known he was open and bleeding like this until she had done it. 

She purses her lips together, but stays quiet, handing him what he needs as he cooks; a peace offering. Roasted potatoes, fried chicken. He hesitates over the pasta salad; once Mia had gotten older, that had always been her job. Not today, he decides, and maybe not ever. But the rest of it he knows how to do himself. 

Going through the motions, feeling those Sunday afternoons like missing like a chopped off hand; the way Jessie had flitted around the room, sticking his nose and then his fingers into everything he could, the way Leon had drifted here and there, arguing with Vince and Letty, starting shit and sitting back to watch it happen. They almost feel like ghosts in the room, almost feel real enough to touch. 

That was all a long time ago. All of it was. Before they were criminals and wanted posters. Back when they were people who liked to go fast and win big. It feels like a hundred years. Simpler times. 

He’s just putting the last plate on the table when they walk back in, Brian’s face slackening in relief at the sight of food. “Oh god, Toretto cooking,” he says, snatching a carrot and masterfully dodging Dom’s swipe. Jack chortles and Brian bounces him. “Yeah little guy, nearly dinner time.” 

When he pulls out a chair, it’s the one to the right of the head of the table. Where Vince used to sit, a lifetime ago. Times have changed, but not that much; Rome squabbles with Tej over the last piece of chicken, Brian solves the problem by taking it while they’re distracted and slipping it onto Ramsey’s plate. She gives him a narrow-eyed look but takes a bite before either of them can notice and steal it back. 

Brian sticks Rome and Tej with dishes, claiming he can’t because he has to put Jack to bed, tiny smirk obvious, but he’s too fast for Rome to catch. 

Dom collects dishes, half aware of Rosa and Brian having a quiet conversation in the corner, her hand on his arm, Nico dead asleep in her arms. She’s talking a lot. Asking a question. He can almost see it; _wh_ _at happened to_ _Mia?_ Brian’s face crumples, and he shakes his head no, and then yes, helpless and shrugging, like even he doesn’t quite know what to say, though he must have been thinking about how he would tell people Mia was dead since the day she had died. Rosa gives him a long look and draws him into a hug, letting him shake onto her shoulder, silent tears. And then, later a weak smile, nervous energy all but drained away. Thank god. 

Everyone goes to bed early, before it even hits ten, but they’re all tired. No matter how they want to hide it, bruises under eyes and ruffled hair telling stories of being shaken out of bed, travelling all day and feeling unsafe while they do it. But nobody can touch them here. Probably nobody on earth knows exactly who they are and where they are, except for Hobbs. Even the pilots hadn’t been given names, hadn’t seen faces. 

Ramsey is the first to retire, slinking out with suspicious eyes still cut in their direction, catlike, waiting for someone to throw a stone or stare at her too hard. Then Rosa, footsteps unafraid. Nico long in bed, her waiting to get to him. 

Brian next, waving a silent hand in everyone’s direction and disappearing wordlessly upstairs. 

That leaves Dom, Rome and Tej. For a few minutes they sit in uncomfortable silence, aware that in the past, they haven’t always got on well. 

Dom speaks first. “You know him best,” he aims at Rome. “How can we fix this?” 

Rome gives him a long, hard look, lips pressed tight together. “I knew him best _once_. It’s been a long time since we were running around getting into trouble together, little punk grew up a lot when I wasn’t looking.” 

Tej pipes up. “Man, if any one of us knows him best, it’d be you, Dom. You know that. So why bother asking?” 

“I was hoping you’d have some ideas,” Dom shoots back. “It’s not like I know how to fix this, or don’t you think I would be already?” Unthinkingly, he runs a hand down his face, surprised when it makes him realize how tired he is. “He loved Mia so much. You saw him, in that house he was staying in. It’s like the only thing he has left in the world is that baby. Like the only thing he knows how to do is take care of that kid.” 

“At least he isn’t drinking,” Rome says, mouth turning down. “There are worse things he could be doing than missing your sister and loving their son.” 

“Brian had a problem?” Tej asks, quiet. 

“Shit,” Rome replies. “We all had problems. Not like there was anything better to do. Only Brian nearly wrapped himself ‘round a tree once, driving wasted. Scared him enough to kick the habit.” 

“So we make him realize he isn’t alone, I guess.” Tej ran a hand down his face. “And keep him off the piss, and make sure nothing happens to the kid. Easy. That’s only three things.” 

Dom lets out a long breath. “This doesn’t leave this room,” he says. “Not ever. And you never tell Brian I told you this.” 

Rome and Tej cock their heads, almost perfectly in synch. Dom opens his mouth and then pauses. The words sit heavy in his throat; it almost feels disloyal to give them life. “Brian’s scared he might hurt Jack. By accident. I think that’s part of what’s on his mind, you know?” 

“In his sleep?” Rome asks. “He used to sleepwalk, some. When he was a kid. Used to freak out my ma – she thought he had a demon or some shit.” 

“When he slept on the plane, that looked like the first time he’d slept in weeks.” Dom stands, stretches. “Maybe one of you should offer to stay with him, or maybe I will. I think it would help him to have someone else there.” 

Before either of them can comment, Dom heads out. It’s been a long day, and an even longer couple of months. He goes to bed and dreams that Brian is calling for him, dreams Brian is holding bloodied hands in his direction, calling for him to come and say goodbye to his sister, without words, just his eyes, screaming, because he doesn’t want Mia to know she is dying, though she has to know. He dreams of his sisters face when she had held Jack for the first time, the peace there. 

Wakes up early, morning light tiptoeing across his walls, jumping with the movement of the breeze of the curtains, shocked and silent. 

Downstairs is a whole new morning. Not the first up, Dom does a headcount; Brian is puttering around in the kitchen, Jack in his left arm while he makes coffee, still in the clothes from last night, looking tired again. Ramsey is at the kitchen table, writing furiously in a large notebook. When he gets close enough to see, she jerks the book closer to her and shoots him a narrow-eyed glare. If he glances through the living room and out the open front door, he can see Rosa, sitting on the front steps, Nico chattering excitedly beside her. Rome and Tej are still sleeping, or in their rooms. Whichever. 

All accounted for. 

Slipping into the seat opposite Ramsey, Dom rubs roughly at his face, trying to get some semblance of awareness, startling when Brian slides a cup of hot coffee in front of his nose. When he sips it, it’s just the way he likes it; hot and sweet, dark. To his surprise, Brian steps around the table and sits next to Ramsey, swapping Jack into his other arm. “What are you doing?” he asks, not really seeming to care whether she answers or not. 

“Coding,” she replies, short. 

“On paper?” Brian’s head tilts in her direction. “Isn’t that a little...” 

“Backwards?” for the first time, she smiles. “You see a computer hanging around here anywhere?” 

“Fair point.” And then they go back to silence, but more comfortable this time. The sun is out, cheering them on. 

After Dom is on his second cup of coffee and Brian is on at least his third, Ramsey makes a noise of disgust, shoving the book away. Jack gives a little squawk of surprise, then laughs. Brian leans over, looks at the book but doesn’t touch. “What’s wrong?” 

She gives him another narrow look. “I can’t make the program... balanced. It’s hard to explain.” It’s obvious that she doesn’t expect him to understand, but as he asks more and more complicated questions, she’s relaxing, looking surprised, eyebrow creeping up, until Brian is picking up her pencil and gesturing to her paper, saying, “can I?” and she’s sliding him a fresh piece. 

He’s scribbling rapidly, brackets and words that mean nothing to Dom but obviously means something to Ramsey; she’s nodding along, reaching in to snatch the pencil, saying “but see here, what about the-” and they’re so clearly on the same page she doesn’t even need to say it, Brian just cocks his head and stares. 

Says, “well why don’t you-” and they’re off again, back and forth until Dom has almost lost count of who has written what, lost track of Brian’s handwriting in the scrawling mess of code that now covers the table. At some point Rome stumbles down stairs and stares at the mess silently. 

“What the fuck is all of this,” he wants to know, reaching for a seemingly unimportant piece of paper. Without looking, Brian and Ramsey reach out in synch and slap his hand away, still debating. Rome turns his eyes on Dom, and he raises his hands. “Man, I don’t fucking know. They’ve been doing this for ages.” 

Finally, Ramsey slaps the pencil down onto the mountain of paper. “Woah,” she says, staring at the mess. The pencil starts rolling, creeps nervously across the table. “How did you know how to do that?” Ramsey demands, eyes bright. The pencil rolls off the edge of the table, but Brian lurches, reaches out a hand and catches it before it can hit the ground. 

Slapping it down on the table, Brian stares at the pencil like he’s never seen it before. “Huh,” he manages. Jack, lulled to sleep by the chatter, jerks awake and begins to cry. In a half second, Brian is out of his chair, rocking gently, fixing a bottle, hands soothing, shaking, just a touch, like it hurts him to hear Jack crying, like he can’t hear it without seeing Mia’s face in front of him. 

Like Jack’s pain is his pain. Like Jack’s hurt is his hurt. Like he can make up for Jack not having a mother by loving him enough, like he has something to _make up_ for _._

Jack goes quiet, and everyone is left staring at Brian’s back, the gentle, rocking movement of it, like a ship lost at sea, unanchored, in pain. Sinking, like something has blown a hole in the side of him and left him for dead, not drowning but starving, floundering, unable to move in the ocean he had loved, once. 

Dom says, as softly as he can. “How did you know how to do that, Brian?” Not knowing why it feels so important that he knows, only half understanding that he wishes he knew Brian better, wishes Brian didn’t have a single corner Dom didn’t know and understand. It’s strange; they’ve known each other for years and years, but sometimes Dom looks at Brian and sees someone he doesn’t understand staring back, but the eyes are happy, the crooked smile is the same. Like seeing someone's reflection their whole lives and then one day seeing them as they are, no tricks, and realizing they were just a little bit different to how you thought. 

“I don’t _know,”_ Brian replies, shoulders locking up, closing down, all of that tension that had faded away back and then some. He pats Jack’s back and the baby burps, lips smacking in satisfaction, eyes gone lazy and judging again. “I haven’t. Since Mia, I haven’t.” He falls silent again. “I’ve been trying not to think too much.” 

At some point, Tej and Rosa have come in, drawn by the tension, the feeling that something was wrong. Nico is not at his mother's side. She must have sent him away, maybe knowing that this was sensitive, that he shouldn’t be here for this. 

“When I was little, I thought everyone could do stuff like that.” Brian slams the empty bottle down and soothes Jack when he startles. “Hold on,” he says, jogs up the stairs and comes back with empty arms. “I always thought everyone could see the way I see, but when I was ten, I fracture broke my arm and the doctor couldn’t seem to understand when I said the pain was grey, not yellow, and that’s how I knew it wasn’t a sprain. I looked it up when I got home, you know the way kids do. I thought I was dying.” 

“And?” Dom asks, not really sure what to expect. 

“And I sort of figured out that my senses were all crossed over. Touch and taste, sight and sound, you know what I mean? I can always tell when the car needs fixing because it makes a different color when it’s driving right.” 

Rome is staring hard. “You know how much sense you make to me now I know that?” He coughs when all eyes turn to him. “Well it’s true,” he defends. “You should have seen how anal he got about his shit not being right, even when it was running smooth as a pin, he’d say nah, my fuckin’ pistons out of synch or some shit, and he’d get in there and pull shit apart and put it back together and all of a sudden he could get an extra kilometer out of it. Fucked me off.” 

“But what does that have to with coding?” Ramsey asks, all bullterrier determination; wanting to know, the jaw locked on tight. 

“The senses weren’t all of it, not really. But they were the cause, I think.” Apropos of nothing, he turns to Rome again. “Do you remember those Where’s Waldo books? Where you had to find the guy in the middle of a picture?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Some people would look at those things for days and not find the guy. Not if they went over it with a magnifying glass. But I could. I could look at the picture and see him like he was in color and everything else was in black and white, just like that. The kids used to time me and quiz me on it. They’d show me the picture and take it away and then ask me where things were on the page. I knew, every time.” His gaze goes flat, vacant. “I still do. I could tell you right now exactly where on each page Waldo was, and all of his stupid friends.” 

“What the fuck?” Tej managed to say, arms crossing. 

“That’s kind of what I thought, all the way back then, and a whole bunch of stuff started making sense to me. I could.” He swallows. “I don’t really know how to explain it. But everything has a pattern. Hair, grass, you know? Engines. I could look at an engine and still be able to tell you about it ten years from now. Stuff just makes a lot of sense.” 

There is a tension in the room now, a stunned, smacked in the face kind of surprise. The sun has retreated behind a cloud, peaking tentatively around the corners of the windows and cringing at the quiet. 

“So, coding?” Ramsey asks again, insistent. 

“It’s just patterning. Same thing. I don’t know. I’ve never done it before, but it’s just about matching up the colors until it makes sense, slotting it all into place and fixing it when it has a problem. Do we have to talk about this more?” Brian’s voice takes on an uncomfortable slouch, a little bit of smallness that stands out uncomfortably in the crowded room. 

“No,” Dom says, before anyone can interject. “That’s fine.” Brian makes a hasty exit, tail tucked between his legs like he should be ashamed or embarrassed. Of what, Dom didn’t even know, but it had clearly been something Brian had been holding onto for a long time. Something that he had been wanting to put down, something that had been hurting him. 

The rest of the day is quiet for all of them, but less so for Ramsey, who doesn’t really know Brian and doesn’t really seem overly concerned with his revelation from earlier, more with busy scrawling endless coding and switching and swapping out wording or phrasing, however it was that coding was written. Fuck if Dom knew. Rosa too, went about her day quietly, but more because she was trying to act like everything was fine in front of Nico than out of any great worry for Brian. She too, had only known Brian for a very short amount of time. 

But Rome was unusually quiet, mouth finally closed for more than half a second at a time. It was nice, but Dom doubted it would last. Rome would bounce back, or at least make a good showing of pretending. Tej was thinking hard all day, but acting like he wasn’t. He and Rome got bored around lunch time and disappeared into the garage, triumphant, to announce that there was a Maserati in the fourth car space and a decent tool kit. They were going to pull it to bits for inspiration in their own cars, though if the Maserati had anything in it that they hadn’t already thought of, Dom would be pretty surprised. 

Brian didn’t come downstairs much, a couple times to grab a snack and a bottle for Jack. He wasn’t eating enough. Brian, not the baby; he was drawn out and pale. Dom had to resist the urge to grab hold of him and shove food at him until he looked healthy. When he was young, not all of his problems had been solved with food, but his parents had been firm that it was harder to be sad with a stomach full of comfort food. 

The time passes, slowly. Rosa unwinds, letting Nico run wild on the beach, and Rome and Tej somehow acquire – and Dom very carefully doesn’t ask how – a late 2000’s Eclipse Spyder and spend several days tearing it apart looking for something fun to do with it. Namely, trying to make it go really, _really_ fast. 

Still no word from Hobbs, but Dom wasn’t really expecting any. 

Five days in, Dom wakes up in the middle of the night with a sudden certainty that something is wrong. He checks in Rome’s room first, and then Tej’s. Rome doesn’t stir, but Tej rolls over and mumbles “Dom?” and Dom backs out and says “go back to sleep,” shutting the door quietly. Rosa is in bed too, Nico asleep beside her and Ramsey, in the other bed, is silent, although he swears her eyes are gleaming in the light. 

Brian’s bed is empty. So is Jack’s crib, but now Dom is closer to the stairs he can hear a muffled crying, maybe from the living room. The sound is low, drawn out, like getting stabbed in the lung. The closer Dom gets, the more convinced he is that it isn’t Jack crying, but Brian. Sure enough Brian is sitting it the couch, head bent over Jack, cradled in his hands like he’s made of glass. Their foreheads are touching. The nape of his neck looks vulnerable and open, and Dom has to resist the urge to slide his hand there, hold on tight and cover that softness, make Brian invulnerable again. 

He wants to say, hey, it’s okay. Wants to take Brian and tug him over until his head is on Dom's chest, Jack cradled between them, so that Brian might finally feel safe enough to sleep. The urge to protect both Brian and Jack is a hit to the chest, sudden and brutal, unforgiving and unavoidable. 

Instead he sits, a careful distance between them. Says; “I never thought anyone would be good enough for my sister.” And Brian lifts his head from Jacks and gives him a watery smile. 

“Is this where you tell me you approved?” 

“Fuck no,” Dom replies. “I stand by that. Nobody in the world could have been as good for her as you, though. Nobody could have loved her more, loved her harder. And it wasn’t my place to tell her who to love, and she would have smacked me one if I had ever made a serious try.” But he’s smiling. “If I could have picked anyone, it would have been you.” 

Brian stares down at Jack for a long time. The light is low, only a single lamp lit in the room, and he looks honey gold and warm, beautiful and sad. “I never thought I would be a single dad,” he comes out with eventually. “I thought, if one of us was going to die it would be me. I wish it was me.” 

Dom cuffs him over the back of the head, frightened and trying not to show it. “You know Mia would kick your ass up and down the street if she heard you talking like that. I might, you know. In her honor.” 

“I don’t know how to be a parent by myself. I didn’t plan for this. I love this kid so much it feels like my teeth are being pulled out, and it’s still not enough to stop me from wondering if I’m doing this wrong. Mia should be the one who gets to see him take his first steps, say his first words. It should be her, not me.” He runs a hand down Jacks face, touches his knuckles to Jacks cheek. “He’s so perfect,” he says. A gulf grows in Dom's gut at that touch, something hollow and painful swelling in his chest. The love there, the pain. 

“You been thinking about hurting yourself?” he asks. 

“A couple of weeks after-” Brian hunches, sucks in a deep breath. “After Mia died. She – I was having trouble with Jack, you know? So I put him down for a nap and went for a drive.” His head shakes and his mouth turns down, a little mean, a little mocking, aimed inwards like he’s still beating himself up about it. “And I was driving like a fucking mess, bad enough I shouldn’t have been on the road at all, let alone as fast as I was going. I met this logging truck, and for a second I just thought, you know. What would happen if I pulled in front of it?” 

He’s silent for a long time, staring into the middle distance like he can see it all over again. Dom nudges him and he sighs. “I kept driving, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The whole way home, I imagined it. How it would feel, what it would sound like. And then I picked up Jack and I realized I couldn’t leave him, and anyway, what the fuck did that truck driver do to deserve having that on his mind? I felt selfish.” 

Dom has no fucking idea what to say to that, so he just scoots closer and pulls Brian tight under his arm, Jack between them, Brian shuddering with almost-tears, heaving. “I’ll sleep between you,” Dom says. “You don’t have to worry about hurting Jack, I’ll never let that happen. Go to sleep, Brian,” and Brian does. 

The sun comes up slowly, creeping across the floor and closer to Brian’s socked feet on the couch, slipping through the window and lighting up the room. Rosa comes down stairs first, a still sleepy and silent Nico on her hip. Dom raises a finger in the universal gesture for silence and she leans closer to look at Brian, Jack resting on his chest, smiling when she sees the rest, the peace. For the first time in a long time, the feeling that things are going to be alright is a slumbering cat curled in Dom’s chest, stretching out it’s legs and flexing its claws. Brian stays asleep long enough that Jack is stirring before his eyes open. 

But whatever silence hung about the house was shattered when Jack began to cry, suddenly awake and furious at the world for not having already fed him. This jerks Brian into the land of the living, already standing and rocking as he walks to the kitchen, exchanging a wane look with Rosa that says far more about babies than Dom knew was possible. 

To Dom’s eyes, Brian looks better than he has all week, but he’s still aware that Brian hasn’t shaved in weeks, and remembers the way Hobbs had told him to get Brian cleaned up. He half wondered if Hobbs hadn’t known that Brian was struggling and had set up this this whole situation for Dom to fix it. 

_Fix_. Brian wasn’t broken. He was grieving, and he was looking after a baby. But he was exhausted, not some shattered vase waiting for someone to piece him together again. 

Nevertheless, he could use a shower, and he was going to have one if Dom had to shove him into it himself. 

In the end, it didn’t come down to that. Dom just waited until Jacks bottle was ready and then gestured for him. Said; “Go take a shower, I’m pretty sure I can feed a baby for ten minutes,” 

Brian gives him a haughty look. “If it takes you ten minutes, you’re doing it wrong.” But he was going, somehow maneuvering Jack into Dom’s arms and upstairs with only one look back, hesitating with his foot on the third step, until Dom said “Go. I’ll take care of him,” and Brian was gone. 

Dom turned to Rosa instantly. “I’ve never feed a baby before,” 

“It’s not that hard,” she said, a smile in the tone of her voice. But she came over and showed him anyway, not even mocking a little bit, although he could tell she wanted to. Brian came down a crisp six and a half minutes later, but he had showered and shaved, and his hands were only barely shaking when he took Jack back, so Dom was definitely going to count that as a win in the mental tally he had started. 

The rest of the day continued as was becoming standard, except at dinner time Rome walked in a slapped a fat pile of envelopes on the table and said, sarcastic and cutting, “I think we got some mail.” 

They waited until after they had eaten to open it. No point in ruining a good meal, but by the looks of it nobody tasted it anyway, eyes sliding over to the relocated stack of paper until Dom gave up and said “fine, someone clear this crap off the table,” and made everyone wait until that was done before they could get too it. “We’re going to need the space,” he said defensively, when Tej shot him a look that moved past irritation and had verged into murder territory. But Dom knew the real reason he didn’t want to open the envelopes. He made a point of trying to be honest with himself, so he knew he was frightened of what the words would say. That they were going to be called in, no other way, that their fragile peace was going to be destroyed in some way. He was scared that they would have to fight again. That Brian would have to fight again. 

The first envelope yielded a couple of large maps; one of the world, the other a detailed map of the States. Dom spread them both out and gestured to Rome to open the next letter. 

So on and so forth; there was a letter with a list of addresses and dates, a list of what had to be Shaw’s known associates, a list of all the places he had travelled as a soldier. There was a list of all the information he had on the team, as well as copies of the detailed files he had stolen. Hobbs, asking for help. Obviously, he was going nowhere with this. 

Brian sighed and nudged into the space between Dom and Rome, wordlessly handing Jack to Dom. Eyes on the maps, Brian started placing pins, getting Rosa to read out addresses and dates, color coding the hell out of it, until all of the pins were placed and colored. To Dom, it looked like a mess of nothing, scattered fairly evenly across the whole states, and on the world map scattered in little patches, warzones and military bases. 

“Should we even be seeing this information?” Rome asked. “I mean, shit. Look,” he points out a couple of red pins. “Those are, what? classified military bases? That’s top-secret shit right there.” Brian rolls his eyes and bounces his shoulder off Romans. “I’m just saying,” Rome defended, hands rising. “I don’t want my head blown off because I know where America store their nukes.” 

“That won’t happen, or Hobbs wouldn’t bother having us in a safe house in the first place, you idiot.” 

Just as Rome looks ready to start bickering with Tej, Brian interrupts. “Yo, Ramsey. This look interesting to you?” 

Ramsey sidles over to Brians side of the table, staring. “Do you see that?” Brian asks. “All these are prior locations, right? So-” 

“So as of a week ago, he was spiraling closer to us.” Ramsey pulls out a chair and sits. “These are all safe houses. Known ones. And these,” she points, “must be secret ones. Shaw made a hit on every single known safe house he could, and then here, three days ago, he started travelling around the more secret ones.” 

Brian furrows his brow. “How secret do you want to bet this safe house is?” he asked the room at large. 

“Not as secret as I wish it was,” Dom says. “Not enough that I would bet on it.” 

“You know what doesn’t make sense to me?” Brian asks. “Where we are is directly in the middle of where the spiral started. Now _way_ is that a coincidence. So he’s known where we are this whole time, right? Why not just come here?” 

“He wants us to know he’s coming,” Tej says, after a hefty pause. “Why else?” 

“But _why,”_ Brian asks. “If he keeps moving on this timeline, he’ll be here in what, three days? Four? That’s more than enough time for us to get the hell out of here.” 

“I’d be guessing that’s what he wants us to think,” Rome interrupts. “Maybe he wants us to wonder about what he’s doing and think nah, let’s sit tight on this one. Maybe this place is somewhere he can get to without being caught and he wants us to all sit here like a wrapped-up present with a fucking bow on, and then set the house on fire while we all inside it.” 

“This is getting a little paranoid for my tastes,” Ramsey snaps back. 

“You know what,” Brian snaps finally. “I actually don’t care anymore. This guy wants to come and try and kill me? Kill my baby? He isn’t going to get the chance.” 

“Yeah?” Rome snapped back, “and how are you going to insure that, golden boy?” 

There is something ice cold about Brian now; when his eyes turn to Rome all Dom can see is the way Brian had held Mia in his arms, at the end of the runway, fire lighting up the world around them. Dom had had Letty in his arms, thinking _things are going to be okay,_ and Mia had stumbled. He’d seen the look on her face and started running to her, before Brian had even really realized what was happening. She hadn’t told anyone she was bleeding, not right up until she knew they were going to be okay. Dom had thought Brian looked cold, then. When he had stood up, Dom thought he was going to have to stop Brian from going and beating the shit out of Owen Shaw’s dead body. But Brian had clamped his arms around Dom and squeezed so tight it was like he was drowning. 

What this all means is that Dom knows that face. He knows the look of it, the coldness, the emptiness. No matter how hard Brian tries to be unreadable, Dom knows that face means fear, now. 

“Deckard Shaw was a dead man the second he laid a hand on Han. He was dead from the second he decided he was going to kill us and destroy the fucking world while he was at it.” Brian stepped away from the table, ran his fingers through his hair. “He’s a dead man, right now. He just doesn’t know it yet.” 

With that, Brian turns away completely. “I’m going to bed.” His fingers trail along the walls as he walks, like they’re the only way he’ll find his way back to his room. Like he’s walking blind but for that one anchor, that one last grip on the world. 

When Dom opens his door an hour later, Brian doesn’t stir, not really. But when Dom says, into the darkness; “It’s just me,” Brian’s body relaxes, and his hand slides out from under his pillow. Dom carefully does _not_ think about what Brian might be concealing under there. As long as Brian doesn’t stab him with it, it’s none of his business. 

Brian sits up in bed, hair in a disarray. “What’s going on?” 

“When I said I was going to sleep between you and Jack, I meant it,” Dom says into the quiet. The room is warm, very dark. It smells like Brian’s sweat and Jacks baby smell, whatever that was. “You won’t hurt me, and with me in between, you definitely won’t hurt him.” 

He’s half expecting an argument; even though Brian had agreed in the softness of the morning, that didn’t guarantee he would feel the same way about it after a day of thinking about it. To his surprise, Brian huffs a laugh and rolls over, lifting the sheets. “Alright, but I’ll tell you right now Mia-” his words cut off with a click. Quieter now, he says; “Mia used to complain that I kicked, so good luck.” 

Dom slides into bed and finds Brian’s face is very close to his, pale blue in the moonlight slipping through the curtains. “If she could put up with you, I’m sure I can too,” he says, pleased when it makes Brian’s face crease into a smile. “Brian,” Dom says, and reaches over to smooth out the lines between Brian’s eyebrows. “Whatever you’re think about doing, with Shaw.” His hand stills. “Don’t do it alone. Let someone help you.” 

“It has to be me, Dom,” Brian replies, voice hushed between them. “Anyone else, he’ll expect. It has to be me, and you have to keep Jack safe.” He catches Dom’s hand, squeezes lightly. “It has to be you taking care of him. I don’t trust anyone else. Rosa knows about babies, she can help. But I can’t do this unless I know you’re looking after him.” 

“Okay,” Dom says. “Okay.” 

Brian’s eyes are very big and very blue under the light. “You have to promise you’ll keep him safe,” he whispers. 

“Of course,” Dom replies, words filling the tiny space between them. “You know I’d anything for my family.” 

Satisfied, Brian gives Dom’s hand a final squeeze and rolls over, appearing to go to sleep. Dom lies awake for a long time, staring into the back of Brian’s head like it might tell him what Brian is thinking, what he’s going to do. 

Dom is suddenly, violently frightened; he remembers that day, right after Owen had ripped the word apart, the way Han and Brian had sat together, faces dry, stewing in the same, bitter grief. There had been understanding there, a similar roughness in their voices, and Brian had only hung out for a couple of days before he took off, looking hunted by ghosts nobody else could see. 

They were all swirling through grief, all of them. Dom couldn’t hardly look at the front lawn without seeing Jesse’s body on it, couldn’t walk into the lounge without seeing Mia sprawling across the couch. He couldn’t look at his bedroom without seeing his bed, with Letty in it, laughing at him and throwing pillows. But he had convinced himself that letting Brian go was the best way, that he would come back when the wounds weren’t quite so fresh. 

There’s not a day goes by that Dom hasn’t regretted that he had let Brian go without argument, not one. There’s that day, and another day he’ll always regret; the day he had gone to Brian’s door with those photos of Letty in his hand knowing full well that Brian would insist on coming. Wanting him to, even. Wanting to go for a ride, one last time. Wanting something more than the quiet life. Wanting Brian to be in the car next to him, going a hundred ten into traffic, knowing they’d pull it off. 

He thinks for hours, tossing and turning, and comes no closer to understanding what Brian might be thinking. It takes a long time, but Dom falls asleep eventually; when he wakes up, Brian is gone. 

They get through the day basically by trial and error; at breakfast when Dom offers Jack food, he mostly screams and throws it, smacking at Dom with tiny but furious fists. When Rosa offers him a spoonful, he takes it grudgingly and sends her the sink eye, but it mostly ends up in his mouth. Victory. 

By lunch, Jack wants Dad and nothing else will do. He screams like someone is chopping off his toes and just when Dom becomes concerned he might actually blow a gasket, he goes down for a nap. 

Things carry on; Brain is on blackout, or at least Dom assumes he is. Otherwise, he would have called. Surely, he would have called. If not to hear Dom tell him Jack was okay, at least to let Jack hear his voice. If he was able, Dom tells himself, Brian would call. If he didn’t it wasn’t because he was dead it was because he was _busy,_ but either way he had a new appreciation for how Mia must have been feeling, when Dom came with a handful of photographs that meant the end, danger; he doesn’t know how she sat at home and took care of the baby, trying not to think that her husband might never come home, or might come home in a box. 

Brian wasn’t Dom’s husband, but the feeling was almost the same. He was frightened, and when he got scared he got angry, just like when he was a kid. Safe to say he was fair steaming when Brian knocked on the door like he’d gone out for grocery shopping, not a killing spree. Was it a killing spree if it was only the one guy? Fucking whatever, Brian was home and he looked terrible, eyes dark with something that wasn’t just sleepless nights, something meaner. 

It went away when Dom slammed into him, grabbed him in a hug with Jack squawking excitedly between them, tiny hands reaching up to tangle in his father’s hair. 

Brian felt small, wiry; he’d been a tough guy when they met and from what Dom knew, he’d been a tough kid, too. Not really so much strong in his body as strong in his mind, in his heart, always hurting and walking through it anyway. There was something strong about him now, a little bit of that restlessness, that pain that shadowed lessened, so he could walk a little taller. He’d lost weight while he was gone, or maybe just since Dom had hugged him last, that day when Brian had touched a finger to the counter of the old house, run a hand along the cabinet and said, like it was hurting him, “I don’t belong here anymore, Dom,” and Dom had pulled him in, not knowing what to say, and let him go. 

“Brian,” Dom managed to say, through a throat that was suddenly, embarrassingly, tight. He stepped back a little, quickly, clearing his throat and handing over Jack, who was making happy squeaking noises, chirping and humming like he was right on the edge of talking. 

Brian took Jack with a smile, kissing this fluffy hair. “Hey, bud,” he said, stepping past Dom, eyes flicking slowly through the room. There was something satisfied in his eyes, a little bit of that old laziness returned. Dom opens his mouth but closes it again sharply. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, and besides, Rome is walking into the room and letting out a long low whistle, eyes scanning carefully across Brian’s body. 

“Man, you look like shit,” he announces, and grins when Brian cups his hands over Jacks ears, glaring. 

“Rome, do you know how to mind your fucking language in front of my kid?” he snaps back, and then laughs and leans closer to slap his palm into Roman’s. 

Rome reaches out and pulls Brian into a shoulder clap, leans back and stare at him for another long moment. “Nah, for real though. You alright, man?” 

“I’m a lot better than I was two weeks ago, that’s for real.” He still looks hunted, still looks a little shaky, and his hands are clutching Jack close to his chest like he missed him like a limb, but he’s smiling. He says, “Shaw is dead,” and Rome goes still. 

“You _know_ it freaks me the fuck out when you say shit like that with a smile on your face,” Rome complains, head shaking. Dom leans on the doorframe to watch them, just for a second more. It’s been a long time since he’s seen Brian like this, playing around and fake arguing with Rome for the hell of it. 

It’s clear he’s not needed right now; he slips out the door and gives them some space, trying to forget the way Brian had looked when he had first walked in the door. Like he was home, and it had been a long time since he had been off his feet, and he was glad to be back. No matter how hard he tried, Dom couldn’t stop being pleased that he had put that look there. Couldn’t stop being happy that this place was home for Brian, and that Dom got to be there too. 

Mia was almost a physical presence, then. Like she was standing next to him and looking out into the water, too. He could almost hear her voice in his ear, saying _Dom,_ _you_ _asshole, you better make sure my husband doesn’t go and kill himself while I’m not there to watch his back,_ voice hard and amused, eyes sharp. She had always had this look about her like she knew what you were thinking even before you did, even when she was lying. She could be flying by the seat of her pants and spinning a wicked story to the cops that had pulled her over on a joyride, so earnest and silver tongued she was impossible to not believe, Dom looking on and nodding stupidly as she spun some story out of nothing that always saw them driving off without a speeding ticket. 

Brian came and found him, eventually. Jack was absent but when Dom cocked his head, he could hear laughter from deep within the house. Brian looked serene, finally. “Tej and the others are going to take off, soon,” he says, glancing at his hands on the railing. Dom follows his gaze; there’s a tiny cut on one of his knuckles, a day or two old. Suddenly seeming uncomfortable, Brian shoves the hand into his pocket. “Rome says he’s ready to get the hell out any second.” 

“Boredom?” Dom asks, eyebrows furrowing. “I thought he was enjoying a free vacation, courtesy of our biggest friend.” 

“That’s the problem,” Brian replies, a smile trying valiantly to shine through, despite his obvious attempts at smothering it. “He’s been enjoying himself on behalf of the beautiful woman two or three houses on the left, and her,” his voice lowers, mocking, “’very large and muscular husband’ just happened to get home from his business trip and find them in bed together this morning.” 

There’s a contemplative silence as they both consider it: Rome, and his stupid, big mouth running off at a hundred miles an hour while the husband tried to decide whether he was going to kill Roman outright or whether he was going to throw him out of the window first. 

Dom attempts to smother a snigger, but it breaks through and comes out regardless; Brian breaks out into an immediate, brilliant smile, looking like the cat that got the canary, quietly pleased. 

“So Rome’s getting out, and the rest too, fair enough,” Dom turns to look at Brian a little more fully. “But what about you? What are you doing?” 

Brian squints back at him, still smiling a little in the corners of his mouth, and turns to look out over the water, yet again. “You know, when you turned up and said that Hobbs had asked you to put Shaw in the ground... I was almost happy, you know? I’d been waiting for someone to die for what happened to Mia for a long time. He wasn’t the right person but, in my mind, it was close enough.” 

Dom was silent. This felt like something Brian had been meaning to say for a long time, something important. 

“And when you said you’d told him no, I was mad. Because he was threatening me and my kid. I wanted him dead, even if I was fucked up enough that I could barely function. I wanted him to die. I’m glad I’m the one who did it, even. Even though he’s not the same Shaw it still felt good.” 

Brian turns and grips tightly to the fabric of Dom’s shirt. His eyes are wild around the edges, suddenly, his hand burning through the fabric of Dom’s clothes. “Is that wrong? I don’t know any more. I killed a guy just now Dom, and I don’t know anything about it except that it felt good to do it. It felt right. I never wanted to be that kind of man. I don’t want to be that kind of father.” 

Dom gripped at Brian’s hand when he felt him start to pull away, feeling like he was losing him to an ocean of distance, standing a foot away. “You aren’t that kind of man, Brian. You never have been.” 

“Haven’t I?” Brain asks. “I was always a little faster to jump in, you know. Always a little angry, but I didn’t mind that. But now, I killed a guy and I wasn’t angry about it. I wasn’t scared. My blood was cold as hell, Dom.” 

“Christ, Brian, what are you trying to say?” Dom bit out. “What do you want me to tell you?” 

Sagging, Brian leant onto Dom’s shoulder and shook his head, tension still a tight bar across his back. It was the work of a moment to draw Brian closer into the hug, and only then did he relax, like this had been what he had wanted all along, only he was too scared to ask for it. Or maybe he didn’t even know that it was what he needed. 

“What I’m trying to say is,” Brian said eventually, head on Dom’s chest, like he was speaking to Dom’s heart and nothing else. “I’ve killed men before, on the grounds of it being me or them. Men who were trying to kill me first. And it never really bothered me much, to do that. It didn’t feel wrong, and I wasn’t really happy about it. So I’ve killed men before; it was either I killed them or I would die, and for a long time I was too scared to die. But now, I’ve killed a guy before he even knew I was there, just because someone said he was planning on trying to kill me. And I liked doing it, because it felt like it was right for me to kill him. So I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but this time felt different to the other times. And I just hope that it hasn’t changed me in some way I’m not ready to deal with.” 

“If it has, we can work it out,” Dom says. “But I think you worrying so much means that it hasn’t. It means you’re still good, by whatever unit you want to measure.” 

“Guess so,” Brian said, withdrawing. The space where his head had been resting felt cold, and Dom rubbed it absently. He was violently and uncomfortably aware of the space between them, the intensity of Brian’s eyes on him. 

“Guess so,” Dom repeated, allowing a small smile. “What are you doing now, Brian?” 

Cocking his head, Brian took in a deep breath, salt and heat. “You saw the house back where I was before,” he says, gesturing vaguely. “It was nice but... there’s nothing there for me. I suppose I’ll stay until Hobbs turns up to kick my ass out of here.” 

“Unlikely,” Dom replies. But he thinks of the front steps of his house, a little crooked, and the doorframe that stuck when it rained and the wood swelled. It’s been sitting there for years; it can stand to sit a little longer. “But I’ll have to stick around to make sure.” 

Even as he casts a confused look in Dom’s direction, Brian’s brow seems to relax, tension finally easing. “You don’t have to,” is the only argument he puts forward. 

“Course I don’t,” Dom replies, gently as he can. “But someone’s got to look out for your dumb ass.” He ducks the halfhearted swipe Brian send in his direction, grinning suddenly, and spins into the house before Brian can get a word in edgeways. 

“Fuck you too, Dom _,”_ Brian yells out eventually, indignant, but Dom pretends not to hear. Christ, but it feels good to hear laughter in his voice again, to hear _anything._ It’s good. It has to be good. 

The plane which is taking everyone else home arrives a little after lunch, and Brian leans his shoulder against Dom’s as he watches everyone board. “You could still get on it,” he says, waving as Rome sticks his head out the door to say goodbye. 

“Sure I could,” Dom agrees. “But I won’t. Not when you’re here.” 

“You don’t have to babysit me,” Brian replied, but he didn’t move away, and he didn’t sound too pissed off about it either. 

“I know I don’t. But I want to.” And It's probably just this side of too sincere, too honest, but Dom means it all the way. Brian must hear that in his voice, that honesty, because all he does is sigh, and hoist Jack a little higher onto his hip. 

“Okay,” he says after a pause. “Alright.” 

That night, Brian looks surprised and a little relieved to see Dom sliding into the other side of the bed. The sun is long gone by now, and the moon is nothing but a razor sharp curve, it’s dark enough to sleep with the curtains open and still not be able to see anything but the barest details of Brian’s face. It makes it hard to tell what he’s thinking, though Dom can feel those eyes on the side of his face. 

“Okay, I give,” he says eventually, rolling over to look at Brian. “What?” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Brian says after an age, time honey thick and tree sap slow, and he rolls over to stare at the wall. 

Dom wants to open his mouth and say _I just keep thinking about how you had a go bag packed when we arrived,_ and _when you pulled the thermos out of it, the water was still hot,_ and _how often did you refill that bottle so it always had hot water in it? How ready were you to run, Brian? How ready are you now?_

He wants to say, _don’t leave me again without telling me,_ and _please come back with me to the old house, even if you keep seeing Mia’s ghost there._

In the end he doesn’t say anything, just settles back over onto his back and closes his eyes, tries for sleep. 

In his dreams he’s running through the corridor of the old house, ground bucking under his feet like a beast with a mind of its own. His hands fall through the walls when he tries to steady himself. He can hear Mia laughing at him, like she’s just around the corner, but when he turns it she isn’t there. The house is hot with long summer days, the kind of quiet brought on by warm humid air and lazy days with plenty of people lying around in easy silence. 

When he wakes, his hands lurch, grasping for the people that aren’t there anymore. Brian is propped up on one elbow, face contemplative. There is a tiny wrinkle between his brows and Dom reaches out, half on instinct, to smooth it out. Once done, his hand pauses on Brian's temple, thumb stroking once more over his brow. 

Like the sun coming out, Brian smiles. “You must have been having a bad dream.” 

“Not bad.” Dom disagrees. “Just... remembering.” 

“Lots to think about.” 

“Yeah.” There’s a tiny slice of moonlight streaming through the curtains. It falls diagonally across Brian’s face, lighting him up sure and solid and silver. Something about him looks easy, and Dom had never been this able to look into his eyes and see him, not like this. 

Almost unconsciously, Dom curls his hand a little tighter into Brian’s hair and thinks about what it would be like if they kissed, right now. If Brian would smile into it the same way he smiles when he takes a corner too fast and has to ride it out, tires slipping in the gravel on the side of the road. 

Then he realizes what the fuck he’s thinking and recoils, hand loosening reflexively. Brian jerks back in response, brow furrowing. 

“Go back to sleep, Brian,” Dom says, before Brian can ask him what the hell’s wrong with him. Mostly because he doesn’t know what the fuck he would say – I'm sorry, I just got caught up thinking about kissing you and then realized it was kind of fucked up to think about kissing my dead sisters husband? 

No way in hell. 

Just to avoid that curious look on Brian’s face Dom rolls over, feigning sleep. Transparent, and he can feel Brian burning a hole through his back, but the hint is taken. With luck, Brian will play the weirdness off as the nightmare talking. Dom can just never think about Brian like that again and they can be okay. Brian can mourn his wife without Dom trying to spit on her grave. 

Except he _couldn’t_ stop thinking about it. 

Brian slings Jack up onto his chest as he cooks breakfast, grins at the way Jack coos at him, and Dom thinks about kissing the corner of that mouth, thinks about brushing that hair aside to kiss behind Brian’s ear. 

Everywhere Dom turns, Brian is there and Dom _wants._ Wants to hold those old fighters' hands and draw Brian to him, wants to know how it feels when Brian smiles into a kiss and what it feels like when he moans. Dom wants everything from him and it disgusts him. 

How the hell it had gotten this far before he’d noticed, Dom didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. Brian was all sun warmed stone and candles he had lit for himself; his warmth was not Dom’s to steal. And he was still grieving, when he thought Dom wasn’t looking. Sometimes when he looked at the ocean there wasn’t anything in his eyes but the reflection of ghosts Dom could do nothing but hold hands with. 

So Dom was withdrawing. He knew he was falling back, could feel Brian watching him go. Could feel how confused Brian was by it, the quiet hurt of his gaze like a weight to the chest, but Dom didn’t know what the hell else to do. 

They still share a bed – even in his uncertainty, Dom feels something stick in his chest at the idea of leaving Brian to the mercy of his dreams. Or worse, his fears. Dom won’t leave Brian to sleep on his own, afraid that he might hurt his child. 

But his nightmares change. He dreams less of the old house, less of hearing his sister laugh, just out of reach. Instead, he dreams of Brian recoiling from him, hand smearing over his mouth and face curdled with disgust. He dreams of Mia angry at him, memories he thought he had long since forgotten bursting up to blend with his fears. 

Time passes. 

Brian’s mood moves from hurt to pissed off after a week or so, and his temper extends only as long as it takes for Jack to go down for a nap before he’s turning to Dom and scowling. “Get the fuck outside.” 

Jesus Christ. But before he can open his big dumb mouth, Brian is walking out the door. Shit. 

By the time Dom gets outside, Brian has already taken off his shoes and socks, and is touching at the edge of his shirt, too. In a sudden movement, he rips it over his head and tosses it to land next to the pile he’s made. “When Rome and I were kids, we used to fight all the damn time. Drove our parents nuts when we wouldn’t sort it out.” 

Brian shakes his head fondly, eyes smiling into a distance only Brian can see. “See cause, we used to live together lots of the time. Like when his ma was working, he’d come to mine. Or when mine couldn’t feed me I’d go to his. So we couldn’t afford to be fighting all the time. Made everyone damned uncomfortable.” 

Dom takes a seat on the front steps, clasps his hands together. “So how’d you fix it?” 

“One day, Rome’s dad turns up outta the blue. He used to show up for a few weeks every now and again and then take off. But he came by one time while we were fighting and decided he didn’t like it very much. So he grabbed us by the scruff and dragged us out onto the front lawn and said we could fight about it like men.” 

Letting a low whistle slide out of his mouth, Dom tried to find the right words. Thank god, Brian seemed to understand the look on his face and laughed. “Don’t worry, man. I know it was fucked up. But it solved our problems all right. And after a while the fight was just a chance to get some of the anger out without saying something we didn’t mean, and then we could get to the talking about it.” 

Brian goes still, sits on the step next to Dom and bumps shoulders with him. “Like, when Rome and I went after Verone, we ended on some bad shit. But,” he waves his hand, _so-so_ , “you know. We threw a couple of hands and then I knew I could trust him to have my back. I knew he was the same guy. Even though we had shit to talk about.” 

Dom gets a low, sinking feeling, deep in his stomach, as Brian turns to him. The little smile in the corner of Brian’s mouth is giving him a bad feeling about the direction the conversation is going to go. Brian uses his shoulder as a crutch to lever himself up, rolls out his arms a couple times. 

“If you aren’t going to talk to me like a grown man, we’re going to have to fight until you tell me what the fuck is on your mind.” Already, Brian has his hands in loose fists, is bouncing on the balls of his feet. There’s something in his eyes that Dom recognizes as familiar – that feeling you get when the world could fly apart and you wouldn’t give a fuck, because you were about to bruise some knuckles on the face of a guy who deserved it. 

“Brian, I don’t want to fight you,” Dom snaps, standing. “For fucks sake, not everything has to end in-” before he can finish, Brian waltzes in and smacks him across the face with easy force. Dom’s head whips back with it, but even without touching he knows that there is nothing there which is going to leave any kind of lasting damage. He lifts his head up and glares, effect ruined when Brian grins at him and hits him again. Another one of those hits that don’t really hurt, but there’s a look on his face that means he might start playing rough if Dom doesn’t at least get his hands up. 

There’s only so many times a guy can take getting smacked around before he at least tries to block the hits, but this time Brian mocks a swing with his left hand and drives in with a low shot to the gut. 

“Alright you asshole,” Dom snaps, blood getting up. He feints a right swing and ducks in with a short left, which Brian sees coming from a mile away, stepping out of reach. But the thing is about Dom is that he looks like a fair enough kind of guy. Rough, but old school. Nobody ever really expects him to play dirty until he gets mad enough to spit blood. It’s why he tends to go for the dirty fighting early, puts people back on their heels and makes them think twice about really wanting to carry on the fight. 

That’s why Brian doesn’t have time to dodge the leg Dom hooks behind his, or the shove Dom uses to send him toppling over. But Brian wasn’t exactly brought up playing with tea cups either, and Dom knows damn well that Brian has never played anything but loose and fast with the rules, not once in his life. 

So Brian stabs a kick at his knee that has his weight buckling, and then has a hold on his shirt that pulls Dom the rest of the way to the ground. 

They go sprawling; Brian hissing like a wildcat as he rolls them over, gets a knee on Dom’s chest and hits him again. Another one of those punches meant to insult, not injure, and Dom sure is starting to get a bit insulted. Pissed off enough that he lurches up and grabs Brian by the wrist, keeps pushing until they go rolling again, this time with Dom ending up above. He claps a hand over Brian's ear and Brian curses, flinching away from the sudden sound and shaking his head violently. 

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Brian grits out. “Tell me what’s wrong with you.” 

“Nothing’s wrong.” Dom’s breath shoots out of him as Brian gets a knee up and sticks him one in the gut, taking the moment of distraction to flip them over again and get a hand onto each of Dom’s elbows, pinning him so that he can’t get any leverage. 

Only problem being, now both of Brian’s hands are busy and he can’t hit Dom again, unless he wants to start in on the headbutting, and that crosses the line between playfighting and fighting so fast it leaves dust trails. The air goes still as they both catch their breath. 

Dom can feel dust sticking to the back of his neck, the awkward crunch of gravel under his spine. He can feel every breath Brian takes; hear every beat of his heart. Against his will, his eyes close, just so he doesn’t have to see Brian right now; the dust and sun a halo above his head, eyes dark and unrelenting. Something about his expression says _hunting._

_“_ I don’t want you to leave me here,” Brian says eventually, and Dom’s eyes snap open again, blinking back the sun blindness to frown at him. 

“I said I wouldn’t leave you and I meant it. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Like something is hurting him, Brian tries for a smile. It looks awkward and uncertain on his face, looks like a band aid over a bullet wound. “You’ve been leaving me all week,” is what he says, sitting back. His weight comes off Dom’s arms and the blood rushes suddenly in a flush of pins and needles. Dom fights a grimace and sits up to rub at them, forcing Brian to slide off him. 

Their knees are touching, legs still entangled, and the sun is high above them. There is no room for soft lighting here; no shadows or sunsets to soften their lighting. All there is to do is stare for a long, long time. Dom breaks the quiet like a baseball bat through a vase. 

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me I have to go.” 

“You’ve been leaving all week,” Brian repeats. “It’s like you just don’t know it yet. Will you tell me what’s wrong?” 

Dom stares. How could he not know? Brian had been reading his mind for years. Long before they had fallen apart and back together again, and he knew Dom probably better than any person left on earth at this point. They could move together, drove like they were two bodies with one mind, stepped around each other like they had been living together for years, not months. 

“I’m wrong,” Dom admits, gesturing vaguely at his head. “There’s something fucked up in me, I don’t know.” There has to be. There has to be something _wrong_ with him. 

“There must be something wrong with the whole damn family, then,” Brian decides. “You all think you’re the only damn person in the world to ever have a problem, and all of you are too stubborn to think that maybe other people can help you.” 

For some reason, that makes Dom smile. He can just see Mia’s angry face, scowling at him when she wanted something she couldn’t have. It was a look he knew well, because he spent a fair amount of time wearing it. And it didn’t look any better on him than it did on her. 

“Is this about... us?” Brian asks, and Dom’s blood runs cold. 

“What about us?” The words come up his throat like venom, but don’t come out any more harshly than a whisper. This is it. This is where it ends – where _they_ end. He doesn’t want to see Brian turn away from him, doesn’t want to see that mouth turn down with disgust. 

The friendship they have is enough for him. He would never ask for more, not at the extent of what they already have. “I’m sorry,” he says preemptively, miserable. 

“Woah,” Brian backtracks. “You know what Mia said, first time I asked her out? She said, sorry, but I don’t date my brothers friends.” He picks at a blade of grass and spins it between his fingers thoughtfully. “Just like that.” He snaps his fingers for emphasis. “She’d played second fiddle to you before, in her own relationships.” He ducks his head, thinks it over. “Well, I guess so. I never asked, exactly. It was hard for her, because she loved you so much, but people were drawn to her second, and you first.” 

“The Toretto effect,” Dom recalls, thinking about Brian’s face when he’d tried to explain. “It drove me crazy, that people couldn’t see her.” 

“She thought I was in love with you.” 

It’s like a slap to the face with a baseball bat. Dom’s breath rushes out and Brian brushes a hand over his mouth, half smile firmly in place. 

“She wasn’t all that wrong, you know.” Brian watches him narrowly, looking for something that Dom has no hope of understanding. “You’re a hard person not to see. And a harder person to not love, at least a little bit.” 

There’s something in Dom's chest like ice. “Mia loved you so much,” he manages eventually. “I’m not going to walk around spitting on her love like it meant nothing to me. Like it meant nothing to you.” Suddenly excruciatingly aware of Brian's knees pressed to his, the heat of him, of his gaze, the steadiness of it. Dom had never known someone like that before; all steady weight against his side, like a long straight road, something to rely on, nothing there to hurt you. 

No matter what Brian had done to this family, in the past, he had never wanted to hurt it. He had never wanted to hurt _them._ There was something to be said for that kind of love – even when he was lying, even with his back against the wall and his knees on the ground, telling a story to save his own life, Brian hadn’t wanted to hurt them. Not even with the evidence of their violence lying like a slaughtered animal in front of him. 

“Mia loved me enough to want me to be happy.” 

“Christ, there’s a difference between wanting you to be happy and wanting you to shack up with her older brother.” Dom wants the words to be sharp, but they come out quiet; Brian is solid before him, more real than anything else in the world, and for all the things Dom has doubted, Brian’s love for him has never been one of them. He’s never looked at Brian and thought that he was in danger of failing this family, not really. Not knowing who he was. Through all the trials they’ve been through, through _everything,_ Brian has loved this family with the kind of dedication borne through blood, through lonely childhoods and growing up hard. 

“What, like we haven’t both been thinking it since the first time we met?” Brian resettles himself, firming up the places where they touch, just slightly. “I remember the first time I ever saw you – I was sitting at the café, and it was so fucking hot I thought I was going to die, and I looked up and saw you grabbing something out of your filing cabinet. And that’s the first time I ever saw you, and I wanted you, but that wasn’t what I was there for. So, when Mia came up to me, I let myself be swept away by her and I put you out of my mind.” 

“But not out of sight.” 

“You weren’t mine to have. But just because I wasn’t fucking you didn’t mean I couldn’t care.” Brian sounds indignant, and Dom has to smother a smile at his tone, at his frank, honest words. 

“What’s the rest of the team going to think,” Dom tries. “If you think about it for more than a half second it gets just all fucked up.” 

“So don’t think so much.” Brian sets about shredding a pile of grass, anything to do with his hands while he talked. “I know for a fact that the team can mind their own business. If they can’t, they wouldn’t be in this family.” 

Dom slumps onto the ground, chest tight. The sky is bright above him, not a cloud to be seen. It would be an almost perfect day for a drive, no wind, no weather. The ocean was smooth and flat before him as far as the eye could see, and probably even further than that. 

Brian was watching him when he looked over, unblinking but not afraid, either. Like he was happy to just sit there and wait, let Dom come to whatever conclusion he would come to. 

“Christ,” Dom said, and sat up, cupped Brian's face in one hand. His thumb fits, just perfectly, into the curve of Brian’s cheekbone. There was something about them, right then; Dom almost felt his heart beat harder, felt the pressure of the blood in his veins, the sweet smell of the water and the grass, and the smell of Brian. It felt like the world suddenly had a little bit more meaning then; like things might not be okay now, but that they would be, someday. 

Brian would probably love Mia until the day he died. But Brian had a lot of love, for a lot of people. Dom had a feeling that they could love each other without difficulty. They already did, mostly. Dom leaned in a little, and Brian did too; when they kissed, Dom could see a thousand years into the future, a hundred thousand, could taste nothing but possibility between them. There was another feeling he got that was hard to put a finger on, like he just knew he could spend the rest of his life in this moment, spend the rest of his days caring for Jack, watching him grow up. 

The world was full of hope, for them both. For all three of them. 

Dom touches the curve of Brian’s throat, thinks about 1327, the crooked steps and way the floor of the garage was uneven. He thinks of the front steps of his house, a little crooked, and the doorframe that stuck when it rained and the wood swelled. 

It’s been sitting there for years; it can stand to sit a little longer. 

This time, the future could come to them. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have to be real with you all, i had a really hard time finishing this. Mostly because i binge wrote like, maybe the first fifteen thousand words and then got to the part where i was like shit but i wanted dom and brian fall in love here. and then i was like, well SHIT. because i've written like fifteen thousand words about how brian was so in love with mia that it was like okayyy, steph, backed yourself into a corner now because if he loves her so much how the FUCK do you progress the plot line you had for this originally. 
> 
> Anyway, as you can see, i wrote the ending. Im pretty pleased with it, but i'll be honest, i haven't gone through and edited the hell out of it. I'll just find problems, and then all of you lovely people will never get to read it. Also i realised part way through writing this that i had no idea how old jack was meant to be so i completely made it up. he's a baby here.
> 
> working titles for this were"FUUUUUCK" and "Sun On A Cold Day," after the bit in the summary. 
> 
> current title is from Interstellar, "Love is the only thing we are capable of perceiving that transcends the dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we don't understand it." Seemed fitting. 
> 
> also yes, i'm very pleased with the fact that this is exactly 18,000 words lmao. feel free to let me know if i've made an error or whatever, but please be kind, i do this for fun : )


End file.
